… the system must convince the losers that they lost. Those who
lost an election and their partisans typically have no required
technical qualifications, so the entire system must be sufficiently open
and comprehensible that nontechnical observers can believe the results.
Furthermore, the losers in an election have no reason to believe any
assertions made by a government that is run by the winners.

Speaking of losers, it turns out that Mussolini did not
actually make the trains run on time!
As near as I can recollect, my mother did not
claim otherwise, but this is one of the myths debunked at
Lies
Your Mother Told You. If you've kind of always suspected that mom
was not on the up-and-up, you might want to check it out. (Although they
don't mention "Your face will freeze like that." Maybe that one's true.)
(Via Saint BBSpot.)

For that matter: duct tape is apparently not particularly
good at wart removal. (Posted as a public service
for the thirteen people
who didn't notice this at Dave's blog.)

She is the granddaughter of Max Born, a German Nobel prize-winning
physicist who fled from Germany with his wife in the 1930s in order to
avoid persecution due to Born's Jewish heritage and his wife's part
Jewish descent (although Olivia herself is a Christian). Olivia's
father, Brin Newton-John, originally from Wales, was an MI5 officer
attached to the Enigma machine project at Bletchley Park, and the
officer who took Rudolf Hess into custody when he parachuted into
Scotland in May 1941.

As an ex-physics geek, I'm sayin': wow, Max Born?
Wikipedia link via Andrew
"Still Good For Something" Sullivan. It is Wikipedia, so
there's
a chance it
could just be made up crap, but personally I don't want to know.

Disclaimers:
Unquoted opinions expressed herein are solely those of the
blogger.

Pun Salad is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates
Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a
means for the blogger to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.